Now Close the Windows
by exultation
Summary: There is a Sammy-shaped hole in Dean Winchester's heart. -Wincest later-
1. Prologue: I Need More Hellos

_"Now close the windows and hush all the fields;  
If the trees must, let them silently toss;  
No bird is singing now, and if there is,  
Be it my loss._

_It will be long ere the marshes resume,  
It will be long ere the earliest bird:  
So close the windows and not hear the wind,  
But see all wind-stirred."_

_Robert Frost, 'Now Close the Windows'_

_Summary_: There is a Sammy-shaped hole in Dean Winchester's heart.

* * *

Dean isn't completely ok when Sammy goes away to college one fine summer day.

He'd known for a while now that Sammy was planning something. He could see it in the way Sam had been skulking and sneaking around and evading questions (_snatching mail away before Dean can see the name on the envelope corner) _and generally being a giant pain in the ass; but the argument, when it comes in the form of disembodied shouts floating up from the floorboards, still hits him like a big motherfucking fist to his gut, no mercy, and leaves him stunned and betrayed and so goddamned furious.

Dean doesn't go down to mediate this time, unlike all the other times. He just sits on his rumpled bed with its flowery bedspread, fists curled tightly and clutching the fabric of his pants (still smeared with soil and loose tufts of soft green grass from training), and stares blankly at the door. He forgets about the long, hot shower he was planning to have and listens instead to the sound of his world crumbling. He can hear the _normal _Sammy is shouting, and the _hunting_ Dad barks in reply, and the _Stanford-Stanford, Dad_ that Sammy bites out and the_ following my dreams _spears him straight through the heart. He winces woodenly, more in habit than in empathy, when Dad ups the ante and roars _abandon _and _betray_ and _this_ _family _and _no son of mine_, and when Sam screams back _fine_, the silence that follows is more than Dean can bear.

It lasts for a few seconds, like Sam and Dad are both shocked, and then someone comes thumping up the stairs so heavily that Dean can feel his bed shivering under him. The _slam_ that comes after shakes the yellowing walls and sounds too final.

.

When Dean opens his bloodshot eyes in the morning, he expects it to be cold and grey and howling, expects there to be thick, black thunderclouds rolling ominously and a poetic lightning bolt sundering the sky, tearing it apart like his family is being torn apart now; but it isn't. The blue summer sky smiles down on him treacherously as sunshine spills in through his window like liquid honey, and it promises to be the balmiest day they've had yet.

He lies on his bed, cursing silently first in English, then in Latin, then in Aramaic and then again in English. He curses every god he knows in every language he can speak, and because he is Dean Winchester, this takes him a while. Once he runs out of gods and beings, he switches effortlessly back to his true-and-tried phrases and every combination thereof that he can think of.

He is halfway through_ goat-fucking cock-mangling douchebag_ when his lanky little brother bursts in, the largest duffel bag in existence slung over his shoulder, and announces, "Dean, take me to the bus station."

Dean sees bright spitting red at the request, so casually said and sounding more like "Dean, take me to the grocery store," or "Dean, sparring session _now_,", and not at all like _goodbye, freaks_. And as quickly as the red floods his vision, it bleeds out and leaves him numb and tired and rather miserable, and he thinks s_ee ya, Sammy_ instead of w_here the fuck are you going and why are you leaving us, _me_, us?_

He pulls himself out of bed, saying nothing, and dresses himself. He can feel Sammy's eyes, hot on his back, the whole damn time, not-quite-sorry yet not-quite-hostile. He brushes past Sam on the way out the door and doesn't stop to look into his little brother's face to see the finality there, because Dean has had enough heartbreak to last him a while.

Dad is nowhere to be seen, the kitchen conspicuously empty and clean, and Dean's heart clenches painfully at the thought that _this_ is how his family ends.

He drops Sammy (_Sam.) _off at the Greyhound station and doesn't wait with him, his own little punishment for his wayward little brother. He is still angry and frustrated and scared (_the long drive and its stony silence didn't help)_, and the crowd of eager, expectant people at the station, all waiting to _go away_, grates on his frayed nerves. He does nothing but gives Sam a tight-lipped smile and a clockwork jerk of his hand, before he's roaring back the way he came, pretending that it's Sam being left in the dust of Dean's future.


	2. Chapter 1: Shambles in the Aftermath

_"I dwell in a lonely house I know  
That vanished many a summer ago,  
And left no trace but the cellar walls,  
And a cellar in which the daylight falls,  
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow. "_

_Robert Frost, 'Ghost House'  
_

**Chapter 1**: Shambles in the Aftermath

_

* * *

_

The house is still silent when Dean gets back from the station, and he stands in the kitchen doorway feeling horribly lost. For the first time in his life, there are no scribbled instructions on scraps of paper, and his standing orders (_take your brother, Dean, now_ is burnt into his head and seared behind his eyelids) suddenly don't hold anymore, because his brother is two hours on his way to ___White Picket Fence and Apple Pie Life_ and distinctly out of reach. He meanders about aimlessly, pulling dishes from the cabinet and putting them back in, and thinks black thoughts that he really doesn't want to think, not right now (_why does everyone keep leaving? Is it me?). _Dean fiddles and fidgets and paces a groove into the tiled floor because he _keeps thinking____,_ before he decides to go back to bed, because at least in sleep his thoughts are silent.

The rumpled bed is welcoming, warmed by the growing sun streaming in, and Dean sinks in with relief and wills his thoughts away. He lies there longer than he wants to admit, drowsy but unable to rest because of the words hurtling through his mind, a hundred miles an hour, zooming past like the white strips do when he is flying down the endless black roads that snake through America.

He tries his best to sleep but he can't help himself, really, when the _Why, why, why, Sammy, why_ and the _What couldn't I give you_ and the _What did I do wrong_? keep on coming. His head fills with poisonous thoughts all clamouring for attention, thoughts that push and pull and run together to become rushing white noise. His heart is pounding in his chest, so hard he can feel it in his throat, and his eyes are damp, and Dean pretends the liquid burning down the side of his face is all sweat.

He tells himself that this is stupid and dumb, and Christ, who cares about Sammy leaving? He tells himself that it's good, it's great, that Sam finally got a fighting chance at having something other than _this,_ and that Sam deserves it, so would he please, for-fuck's-sake, get that beauty sleep he missed out on? He attempts to count sheep and by the time he reaches six thousand, eight hundred and seventy two and starts seeing Sammy's goodbye-face that he didn't actually_ see,_ Dean accepts that sleep isn't coming.

He gets up and goes downstairs, and sometime during Dean's little meltdown, Dad has come and gone again. There is the familiar dog-eared scrap of paper lying on the kitchen table, and Dean hurries over so fast his boots squeak on the floor, and picks it up.

_Checking out leads. Be back in 2 days._

Dean makes a soft involuntary sound, somewhere between a laugh and a choke, and crumples the note.

The absence of Dad is like a nail on his skin, and the absence of '_take care of your brother_' is the blow that drives it in.

He's marching to the Impala, _to get dinner-for-one_, he tells himself. He drives too far, and stops at the bottle shop instead.

.

The two days pass in a blur of sleep, tears and Jack. Dean is sure he should be doing something, aside from drinking himself into a blinding alcohol haze, but he feels a family-shaped hole inside of him and tries his best to fill it up. He blows through one, two, three bottles, puking too much of it up and not really caring, because on the other end of every bottle is a glimmer of promise.

On the first night, when he's downed almost a whole bottle of whiskey in the span of six hours, he contemplates just making a bed next to the toilet. His knees are rubbed red and sore, and he is so, so tired; but he decides not to, because he'll be fucked if he's sunk that low and _fuck you Sammy-Sam-Sam and my achy breaky heart._

On the second night, Dean is on his back and his vision is flickering (_but that's okay, because that way he can't see that goodbye-face that he didn't see). _He can hear his heart beating up in his goddamn _ears_, sounding for all the world like war drums before a battle, but he doesn't really care. He just concentrates on the steady _thump-thump-thump_, instead of the little whispering voices in his head.

.

Dad comes home on the third day, and Dean's pleasantly buzzed on the third bottle. He's happier than he's been for – for however long, because he can't remember what was eating at him. He patters about contentedly in the kitchen, heating up the little boxes of takeaway Dad got, and decides to go all out and set the table (_knives, forks, plates, napkins, and happiness) _the way Sammy likes it_. _Dad walks into the kitchen and looks at him like he's grown a pair of horns, like he's going to bite out _Christo_ and pour holy water on him. "Dean," he says. "What are you doing?"

Dean is confused and something uncomfortable wells up at the back of his mind. "'m making dinner, Dad. Setting the table," he explains, and slides his fingers nervously along the crease of a napkin, smoothing it down.

And Dad says softly, "I know that, son. But what's the third plate for?"

Then Dean remembers, god_damn_it, memory hitting him like a freight train between the eyes, and the pain in his head and in his heart is back. He can't meet his father's eyes as he pulls the third plate from the dinner table.

He finishes the last dregs of his bottle after dinner, as a bedtime lullaby, so that the shadows don't creep into his eyes.

.

It's five days after Sammy is gone, when Dad and Dean go on their first two-man hunt. Dean doesn't think they're ready, thinks that they haven't done enough research, because that's been Sammy's forte since he'd been old enough to go to the library by himself, and later, to Google. He doesn't say so though, sees the look on Dad's face that says _I-have-something-to-prove,_ and they go in guns blazing. And it turns out that it isn't the lack of research that puts them in danger, but something more mundane (_careless_, Dean angrily tells himself, _stupid)_. When the bitch comes in from the side that usually has Sam in it, Dean is howling in agony and afterwards, wishes that it had killed him after all.

But as luck would have it, he sustains nothing more than two cracked ribs and the meanest concussion _ever_ after being flung at the wall like a rag doll. Dad saves the day by first shooting the spirit, and then salting and burning the bones of one Mary Watson unceremoniously stuffed up the chimney.

Dean lies where he is, watches the flames dance and the bitch scream, scream, scream, and folds quietly into the dark.

He wakes up with linen wrapped around his head and embarrassment setting his teeth on edge. Dad is sitting by his bed, packing medical supplies.

"Dad," He grunts hoarsely, trying to sit up before a pain shoots through his side and the room swims – no, fuck that – the room does a motherfucking _butterfly stroke_. He slides back down slowly and groans. "Dad," He tries again. "Sorry."

"It's not your fault, Dean," Dad says, looking ten years older as he puts his head in his hands. His eyes are guilty and haunted, and Dean feels his own little demons multiply at the expression on Dad's face. "I shouldn't have rushed this. Should've known we needed more time, more practice, now that – now that it's just the two of us."

"Dad, no," Dean says. He wants to tell Dad he's sorry for being so weak, and that he can do the work of two hunters, and two sons, and two _anything_ that Dad needs, just to wipe that broken look from his face. He pulls himself up slowly, his insides tightening (_he isn't so sure it's entirely to do with tape binding his ribs)_, and says with a firmness he doesn't feel: "I can do it, Dad. We don't need anyone else. Just you and me, the way it was before."

Dad visibly brightens up at those words and claps him on the shoulder, and there's professional pride in his eyes as he repeats Dean's words. "Just you and me, son. You won't disappoint me?" The unspoken _like your brother_ lingers in the air between them.

Dean shakes his head mutely, and sets the look in his eyes to _Strong and Confident Dean Motherfucking Winchester_.

Dad's relieved smile and gruff "Attaboy," makes the tightness almost worth it.


	3. Chapter 2: Mended, but Broken

"_I pray for strength and fortitude to climb the rock strewn road."_

**Chapter 2**: Mended, but Broken

* * *

Dean acquires a number of vices in the months Sammy is gone. He's made the drinking a habit now, and his father doesn't know, or pretends not to. It doesn't affect his hunting because he's not quite stupid enough for that, but it does affect his cash flow. He trades three-square-meals-a-day for one-and-a-half-and-a-bottle-of-Jack.

He takes up smoking as well, and finds it convenient that the lighters he always carries for the torch-the-bones routine now serve another purpose. The smoke that constantly clings to his clothes drives him crazy, but his nervous, twitching fingers can't let go of the nicotine sticks. So he makes sure not to smoke in the Impala, and does his laundry more frequently.

He gets around a lot more, in between hunts, with waitresses and bartenders and random faces in clubs, and it sometimes helps with the aching he holds inside. The first time a man hits on him and calls him 'pretty boy_'_ (_Generic Dark Bar #19, Nebraska)_, Dean hits_ him_. The second time it happens (_Dodgy Diner #45, South Dakota)_, Dean limps home in shame in the morning, tender and sore in places he didn't realise he could _be _sore in. The third time it happens (_Smoky Loud Club #8, Salt Lake City)_, Dean is absolutely shit-faced, embracing the pain and begging to feel wanted, and screams his throat raw when he finally comes.

Most days, Dean is proud to say that he is okay. He keeps the hole that Sammy left all wrapped up tight inside, and smiles and jokes and holds the remains of his family in place with the strength of his will. Other days, Dean buckles under the weight and loses himself a little. These are the days he usually spends away from Dad's vaguely disapproving eyes, days when he does nothing but drink and smoke and fuck the memories away (or try to). He is unlucky though, because one such sunny day rolls around, and Dad needs him clean and sober for a black dog later in the evening. He is methodically dismantling and cleaning his weapons (_to keep his thoughts lined up straight and true)_, when he slips while oiling his best hunting knife. The little nick on his palm shocks him into the present, and slows his hurricane thoughts for the few seconds it takes to focus on the stinging. The peaceful calm is too brief, like the lull before a storm; and as the stinging subsides, his thoughts come back in full force. And then it seems that the transition from cleaning-his-knives to stabbing-his-arm isn't so difficult after all. The blood rolls down his arm slowly, serenely, and Dean has found his final vice.

.

Dad and Dean have settled in a routine now, wrapped the weeping wound of Sam's empty place in swathes of bandages and tried their best to forget, the way a body does when it finds itself missing a limb. Dad's found his crutch (Dean) and Dean has made his own (Jack, smokes, sex and the unnameable). Life is manageable, almost pleasant, with hunting and these distractions, and Dean comes home after a really good hunt (_easiest son-of-a-bitch ever, eh, Dad?)_, humming and ready for a night of good food and easy banter at the local pub, when his cell lights up and sings that stupid catchy Bon Jovi song Sammy likes so much.

Dad is in the shower and Dean is just grateful for small mercies. He counts from one to five, before he flips his phone open and says in an undertone, "Sammy?"

It is quiet on the other end for a second, and then just as softly, Sam replies, "Hey, Dean."

Dean sits down on the edge of his bed, because his legs are quivering under him, just like the lime jelly pudding he ate last night, and it's that or collapse into a boneless pile on the floor. He doesn't say anything, just focuses on keeping his breathing even.

"How are you?" Sam's voice is a bit uncertain, and he sounds young again, like the Sammy who was Dean's shadow, like the Sammy who cried when Dad came back bleeding from five different places, like the Sammy who would never have left. "And Dad," he adds, almost like an afterthought.

"Fine, dude. Just peachy. How about you?" Dean makes an effort to inject some lightness in his tone, because he isn't so sure how to deal with this, this thing, yet. "Scored any chicks yet?"

Sam instantly snorts at that, and little echoes come back. Dean wonders if Sam is in his dorm room (_his heart does clench a little, here)_, and if it is the stereotypical sparsely furnished student pads he hears about. "Dude, I'm not here to score, I'm here to _study_," Sam says petulantly.

"_Dude_, you're in freaking _college_ in freaking _Cali._ You probably can't move without whacking a hot chick in the face with your gangly ass limbs, and you haven't scored any?" It almost feels like the old days (_when did he start referring to three months ago as the old days?)_ until his stupid mouth keeps running. "I've been scoring left, right and centre without your goofy ass tagging along."

Sam is silent at that and Dean mouths _stupid stupid stupid_.

Thankfully, Sam decides not to press his luck tonight, and just says, "Whatever, man, you're just scoring now 'cause there's no competition anymore."

Dean is caught by surprise and makes an _I-can't-believe-you-just-said-that-I'm-gonna-kick-your-ass_ sound, and Sam laughs.

They continue talking about unimportant things, and trade insults, and then Sam surprises him again by suddenly saying, "I miss you." Something twists in Dean's gut at that, and he can tell that tonight is going to be a bad night.

Dad chooses that moment to walk out of the bathroom, and Dean thanks the Lord under his breath. "You wanna talk to Dad, Sammy? He just got out of the shower. Hold on, I'll put him on," he says instead, and then holds the phone out.

Dad stares at him, and there's thunder on his face at the mere mention of _Sammy_. He shakes his head tightly, and goes back into the bathroom and slams the door.

Dean puts the phone back to his ear. Sam sighs quietly on the other end, and Dean can hear the hurt in his voice when he says, "It's okay, Dean. Don't think Dad's quite forgiven me yet." Irrationally, little waves of malicious pleasure flood Dean at that and he bites his tongue to snap that _No, and neither have I._

They talk for a few more minutes before Sam has '_gotta go, Dean, I'll call again'_, and Dean doesn't ask anything important. He doesn't ask his little brother why he bothers to call after three months of silence, or why he hasn't told them his address. He doesn't ask him if he likes it at Stanford, or if he's made many friends, or how normal feels. He doesn't ask Sam why he left with no thought of what he was leaving behind and why he didn't think to talk to Dean. He doesn't ask Sam whether it was Dean who drove him away. The whole conversation is ripe and heavy with questions that Dean doesn't ask.

Later that night, Dean finds himself in a stinking alleyway, pants around his ankles and struggling to stay upright through the alcohol haze. His fingers scrabble against crumbling brick as he is fucked into a wall by some tall stranger with dark curls and green eyes. He shudders and moans and somewhere, at the back of his head where the rational thoughts usually reside, notes that he is going to be really, _really_, sore tomorrow; when the stranger grunts and pulls out of him and comes across the small of his back. The feel of liquid hitting his heated skin makes him reach his own climax, and he moans _Sam_ as he comes.

He is horrified as soon as the word tumbles out, and as soon as his pants are safely around his hips again, bolts from the stranger, who shouts after him for his number, and heads for the hotel. His dad is already asleep, tossing fitfully like he always does, and Dean lets himself into the bathroom quietly with his hunting knife and the medical supplies kit.

.

Dad has been sending Dean on more and more solo runs now, and Dean both loves them and hates them. On one hand, he gets motel rooms to himself and whichever flavour-of-the-night (pretty girl, pretty boy, case of alcohol and packs of cigs, sharp hunting knife) he decides to bring back. On the other, he has never felt lonelier than ever.

The silence goes on so long during the first of the many lonely road trips that Dean almost forgets how to speak. He stumbles and stutters over his flirty words at the first stop he's made in six hours, and the pretty caramel-skinned waitress who is all tits and legs gives him a pitying look. Dean is flushed with embarrassment, feeling thirteen again, and orders his meal with his head down. After that, he talks to the empty shotgun seat during the long drives, and pretends he hears Sammy's voice answering to him.

Underneath every crusty thing he layers on top, Dean is a family man. He lives and breathes easier knowing that he is living and breathing for someone else. He loves having physical reminders of what he is living for, right in front of him, because then it makes it so much harder to forget. Back then, he had Dad, and he had Sammy, when Dad disappeared for long hunting trips or visits to Bobby or Pastor Jim or whoever else he had to see. He had Sammy there to ground him, to remind him that each breath he took and each day he lived was not for himself, but for his little brother and for his father and for his dead mother. It was easier, better, and it was natural to Dean.

But this – this is hard. He has no one, now, except for his father for uncertain and increasingly shorter periods of time. He knows he can be strong, so strong, when Dad is back with him and they're eating in companiable silence, and Dean feels less like a branch wavering aimlessly in a gale and more like a tree, rooted in family and firm against almost anything.

Dean really is a family man, and he tries to sear a picture of Dad's departing back in his brain, as they separate ways yet again.


	4. Chapter 3: Hello, beautiful

A/N: Can you tell I don't know where I'm driving?

"_I often see flowers from a passing car  
That are gone before I can tell what they are."_

_Robert Frost, 'A Passing Glimpse'_

**Chapter 3: **Hello, beautiful

* * *

Dean meets a girl in Mississippi. Her name is Cassie, and she is beautiful and smart and kind and almost everything that Dean has ever wanted (_everything_ is Sam). He first sees her in a diner when he arrives in town, where she is filling in for a sick waitress as a favour to the owner, and straight out stares. She is honey-skinned and straight-backed and has curves in all the right places, and Dean has to tell himself to stop goggling as she comes over to take his order. He asks for his usual _(beef burger with the lot and a serving of the house dessert pleasethankyou_) and because he is tired that night, and down enough to tell himself that beautiful girls don't want broken toys like him, he doesn't try to flirt and instead just drinks his fill with his eyes.

He figures later that that probably went in his favour, because Cassie isn't the type of girl to respond to lascivious flirting.

He comes back to the diner for each of the four days (_twice a day, actually, because he lays off the alcohol_) it takes to get ready for the job, and sees her there each time. Her smile, initially frosty, thaws a bit each day and Dean can feel the warmth from it spreading in him.

On the fourth day, the day of the hunt, he walks in and she catches his eyes from over the counter. She smiles like sunshine and says in a tone that isn't really a question, "The usual?" And he nods in reply, a grin of his own fixed on his face as he sits at his usual corner. She brings his burger and pie over and her fingertips linger on the serviette she has placed beside his plate, before she catches his eye again.

"I'm Cassie," she says unnecessarily, pointing to her nametag.

"Dean," he replies, and holds his hand out.

"Been seeing you a lot recently, Dean," Cassie says lightly, shaking his hand. He doesn't try to withdraw it and neither does she.

"I'm in town for business, just got in a couple of days ago. Heard you guys make the best burgers this side of Mississippi and had to give it a go," Dean says. "Turns out it's true, so I kept givin'."

Cassie laughs at that, high and clear, and Dean smiles just looking at her.

"Well, Dean, a girl can't take a compliment like that without giving something in return. How about you come around tonight, and I'll fix you something special for dessert?" Her eyes are clear and eager, and Dean doesn't have the heart to say that he is planning to leave town after the hunt because Dad left a voice message about a haunted barn in Indiana.

Instead, he says, "Sounds great, Cassie. We'll call it a date," and is pleased when Cassie flushes a pretty pink and calls out a "See you tonight then!" as she hurries off.

As luck would have it, the Canaima he is hunting is one tough sucker, and Dean takes a fair few hits from its sharp-as-hell claws. He narrowly escapes having his guts ripped out, before he finally gets a shot in and Colts the motherfucker right between the eyes. He burns the body and drags himself back to the motel he's staying in, where he doesn't bother cleaning out the cuts (_dinner-Cassie-promise)_. He has his torso wrapped in so many layers of linen that he looks like a snowman with way too much snow packed into his top half.

Dean tries his best to keep all the bandages from sight, but there is a gash on his left arm that runs from his elbow to the knuckle, and the wrappings around his hand are white and loud and scream _freak_.

He goes to the diner anyway, because what the hell, it's not like he's going to see her again after tonight, right? It's past dinner time, and the diner is pretty empty. The doorbells jingle as he walks in, and Cassie's eyes turn from disappointed to bright-happy.

She serves up his burger, with the largest side-serve of fries he's ever seen. After he's done scarfing that down (_because hunting a giant man-eating beast and losing a couple of pints of blood in the process will do that for a man),_ she comes over with a giant platter that holds an awe-inspiring steaming Mississippi mud pie dripping with fudge and topped with ice-cream, and then surprises him by sitting down on the seat opposite.

She hands him a spoon. "Dig in," she says.

He returns her smile, the first real smile he's felt since Sammy left, and eats noisily, happily. He doesn't see her look at his idle left hand and its reddening bandage, left carelessly on the table for the world to see, or see the smile slide off her face, until he feels her small fingers brushing his injured knuckles. He stops abruptly, mid-chew, and glances up at her.

"What happened?" she asks softly.

His eyes are darting away before he can stop them, and he feels cornered and small. _Lie,_ he tells himself. _Lie, like you always do._ But he can't bring himself to lie to this girl, this beautiful girl with her honest face and understanding eyes, so he just smiles wryly, bitter taste washing away the chocolate in his mouth.

"Long, fucked up story. Don't think you wanna hear it."

Her lips tighten and Dean can see the hint of steel in her pretty eyes when she says, "Try me, Dean," and he thinks (absurdly) _this one's a keeper_.

She must see something in his face, some kind of desperation and tiredness and longing, because the steel softens and she says, "Look, how about you finish up here, and then we go get you fixed up after? You look like you could use some new bandages. My shift's done in ten minutes and then I've got all night."

His heart drops at that, because she doesn't know how much fixing he really needs. "You sure that's a good idea, Cassie? I'm just some random dude from a diner." He tries to make it sound like a joke, but it comes out quiet and flat and more like a warning.

She stands up and gives him a look. "You gonna hurt me, Dean?"

His eyes don't (_can't_) leave hers when he emphatically says, "_No._"

She breaks out in a blinding smile, and says cheerily, "Good enough for me. Now, I'm just going to finish up 'round the back, then I'll come back out and we can go get some bandages from the store. You just keep on working at that pie, and I'll be out in no time."

He does what she says, and methodically demolishes the dessert, until all that's left are brown smears on the plate and a spoon licked clean. His thoughts are screaming that this is a _bad idea, bad idea, bad idea, run duck hide lie_, but he really is just too tired to care anymore.

Cassie is finished not five minutes after, and they head out to the Impala. She whistles softly when she sees it, and runs her hand reverently on the shiny black hood.

When she says "Sweet ride, Dean," admiringly, in almost the same hushed tones he used when he first saw it, Dean thinks this girl can't get any more perfect.


End file.
